Dry Rub for Pork

Out of all the things that we cook on the Big Green Egg (BGE), there isn’t anything that Tavis gets more enjoyment out of than smoking a pork shoulder all… day… long…

He gets up much earlier to make sure the at the rub is perfectly applied. He painstakingly cleans out the old charcoal and makes sure that the place setter and other parts of the BGE are set up properly. He watches the temperature with the diligence of a nervous new parent who cannot leave the crib side as their baby sleeps, except he is usually sipping a beer, even in the morning… ok there were probably better analogies but lets move on.

Although this is the route we (Tavis…) takes when we make pulled pork, you don’t need all the hoopla to turn out some amazing stuff and impress your family and friends. The two secrets are a really good rub (recipe below) and temperature controlled cooking.

When it comes to the smoker or cooking on the grill, I leave that to Tavis, so for now I am going to just share with you the rub we really enjoy on our pork shoulder (for pulled pork) and when we cook ribs. This recipe can be used if you are cooking your pork in a slow cooker (crock pot), in the oven or on a smoker like we do.

1/4 cup paprika

1 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons garlic powder

2 tablespoons onion powder

2 tablespoons ground cumin

4 tablespoons brown sugar

4 tablespoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

Mix all the above ingredients together in a bowl and store in an air tight container at room temperature, until you are ready to use. I usually make a double batch and leave half in the spice cabinet for next time, it stores very well. You can apply the rub the night before, or the morning that you start cooking. In any event, I like to have it applied on the meat at least an hour before we start cooking.

We can dig into the details of smoking pork later for now, enjoy the rub and happy grilling!